You Don't Know From Funk

Ryan's corn picked and in the fridge (small, but edible). Squash producing flowers but no zucchini (further evidence that we are not very good vegetable gardeners). Roses sending up blood red stems and leaves. Tiny annual mums still blooming.

There is one amazing thing about gardening that makes it so apart from writing and exercise, that I wonder why anyone wouldn't trade in the latter for the former: you can garden no matter what mood you are in.

It's true. Gardening almost always makes you feel better when you do it. Whereas a bad day of writing. Hell, there are months of bad writing sometimes. Sometimes you just sit and look at the writing or exercise bicycle and you say, "Aw, the hell with it," then flip on the TV.

I do not know why gardeners won't fall into this dilemma, but as depressed, lazy, wound up, mad at your spouse/boss/children/society as you can get, there's never a moment you can't look out the window and say, "Dang it all, I'm just going to go out there and pull some weeds."

And, it is a small miracle. Problems seem to recede in the distance, you forget why you were mad in the first place. Yes, you may still be mad when you go into the house, but while you're out there, fingers in the dirt, you are not.

Is there a secret? I don't think so. Except perhaps exercise does really feel like a lot of work to go do, even if you feel great afterward, and writing... hell, I don't know why anyone writes. Maybe they like to be tortured.

Today this blog post is brought to you by PostSecret, which is a site that accepts postcards with people's secrets on them to an address in Maryland, then posts them to their blog. It's like popcorn, I read 10 in fascination, and weirdly, got the energy to finally come back here and write.

I would've gardened, but Wendy said if she caught me gardening at night, she'd kill me.

I don't know why I haven't become an eccentric. Seems easier to live that way.

(photo by Ingorrr)

September 4, 2007

Lion's Tail trimmed. Plumbago, aka Sticky Bush, trimmed so car can get by. Corn silking. Black Zucchini flowering, flowering, flowering. Fennel cut down to their very stalks.

That's fennel up top. Not the same fennel you've had in what many Americans would call a "fancy meal" (Farfelle with Seafood and Chicken Bolognese Sauces, Fennel Apple Salad, and Watercress Soup, but the one that grows in ditches, throughout parks, and in vacant lots even Chevron has abandoned.

I love fennel. Even though mine has no bulb as the Italian one does. (That's the trick, aye. Fennel with the bulb. That's the delicious part.) When I was a little more passionate about cooking, I'd go out in the spring and fall and snip some to put in the salad. Yes, I liked the taste, but I think I liked the fact something from my garden was actually in the salad more.

Still, when it's coming back, poking its furry fronds out of the soil, I still do like to grab a bite and get the licorice rush while doing my yard work.

Sadly, fennel is not from here. In fact, it's from very far away from here originally, the Mediterranean, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Also, sadly, my fennel, bulb-less seems to be the noxious invader taking over wild spaces throughout California.

I've got three stands of fennel, with which I've decided to make a compromise after speaking to a native plant guy who educated me on the threats caused by it. I promised to cut it down before it went to seed and could make any more fennel plants.

Ryan has been dying to cut them down for at least three weeks now, but I was waiting until they were absolutely done flowering, mostly because the bees and butterflies love them so much.

It was only when we did cut them down that we discovered most of the stalks were dotted with empty ladybug larvae skins. Looking at them, I thought I had to rescue them before putting them in the green bin. It was only when Ryan and I looked closely that we discovered these were empty shells, the ladybugs flown off to other venues.

Now I ask you, how can I cut down a veritable ladybug creating machine?

Ryan, now wary of spiders and tall grasses did his best to jump into the fennel, cut a stalk down, then jump back. I tried not to be the Father of Yore and yell. When was the next time I'd spend with him out in the garden? (I don't know, it's an interesting edge. You spend too much time pandering to them and it can work against you. Why? I'm not sure, it just does.)

He cut down 10 or so stalks and was done. I finished up, hoed the rest of the grass that had grown up between it and considered going out for mulch.

That would have to wait for another day. It was aptly Labor Day, 9:30 in the morning, and the temperature was climbing in the upper 80's already.

I headed inside for a shower and breakfast.


(Photo by ellengwallace)

Raising Cain

Most flowers fading. Cut back Lion's Tail and Dr. Seuss bush. Roses coming back for a second round, albeit smaller flowers. Second batch of corn taller than Ryan, Black Zucchini larger wider than Ryan.


There may be a victory in the air today, I just don't seem in the mood to get it yet.

One of Wendy's friends is starting a Web site for eco friendliness with a leaning toward families. And, get this, they want to pay me for content.


The problem? I've heard promises like this before and I'm a little too old to be spending my evenings writing away while the supposed check is in the mail.

Yes, doesn't that sound cheery? Don't you wish you were right here beside me hearing these words of encouragement I give to myself? Hell, yes, I hear myself oftentimes and wonder who the hell I am. But that's just me.

Haven't been having the greatest runs of days lately. And it's nothing to do with the garden. It's just... maybe midlife crisis? Who knows. But if you're at the same job for 9 years, as I have been, you can find yourself in a rut.

I meditated this morning, something I rarely do, and the clarity you can get from just sitting on the edge of the bed and taking 5 minutes (yes, 5 minutes) worth of deep breaths is simply stunning. Why? Not my role to ask why, I just know this: my mind was clear and I could see things beyond the everyday ordinariness which clouds my mind so many days out of the month.

Oh, this isn't a cheery entry at all, is it?

Darn it.

Anyway, getting into work and I'm dreaming a bit about being in the garden, feeling connected. Is that the feeling? Connected? Is that what we long for, then rush around looking for other things instead of connectedness because it's easier to buy stuff than do all the hard work?

Got me.

But here it is: Got the opportunity to write for the site. I'm stupid not to take it.

As my friend, who recently moved up to Oregon (from Nebraska) said: Why are you waiting for your life to begin?

Garbage Day

July 30th

Fennel going to seed; tomatoes coming in gangbusters; daylillies fading; magnolia still flowering; lion's tail needs cutting back; grass still going crazy in all those areas I haven't been able to get to.

I'm not saying that every person who works in their garden ends up thinking about garbage, but surely the ones who compost do.

We have a little composter under our sink. Called the MaxAir, it's from Norway (wildly) and is outfitted with compostable "plastic" bags made of corn. When Wendy or I cut vegetables, as we are wont to do, we just throw the scraps into the little composter. On Saturdays, gardening day, I take the bucket out back and dump it in the big composter, bag and all.

In theory, what is supposed to happen is this is all supposed to happen smoothly. Like everything outside of a catalog, it doesn't.

For one, the MaxAir composter needs to be emptied twice a week. And it leaks, even though the ads say it doesn't. So we have to put it in a little Tupperware container. And it has to be outside in the summer. We get fruit flies in Southern California, and I'll be damned if they don't convince you of Spontaneous Generation. There are hundreds of them just a day after you put your first banana peel in there.

The rest, however, works pretty well. I take care of the composting, which I think is the part most people are grossed out by. I don't blame them. The composter is not the pretty one you see in the catalog, it's out in the corner of the back yard collecting spiderwebs over the week. Plus, mind you, it's full of rotting vegetables. OMG! "Rotting vegetables....? Grosssssss." Yes, you can hear the Vals screaming now. (I hadn't even started in on the worms that had moved in.)

Here's the weird thing: we ran out of the compostable bags (we have to order them online. Wait I have to. I just did. But it took me awhile) and in the meantime we've been throwing away scraps into the trash, just like we used to. But get this, we feel guilty about it now. Why? Because somewhere deep in the recesses of our minds, we became bonded to the idea of greencycling. Yes, we can buy organic vegetables (sometimes we do, sometimes we don't), but if we throw them out with the regular old garbage, they're going to be trapped under the miles of rubbish and compacted for the next millennia. " From Packaging Digest, an industry publication on packaging: "studies of landfills have revealed that on the whole, they tend to be tombs rather then composting reactors". I'm not saying the banana peel is as bad as the plastic bag, but still, if I'm here, and I've got space in my yard?

And do I rove the neighborhood endlessly spouting off about my "Black Gold", the compost of kings? No. I don't. Actually I rarely even use the compost out there in my bin. Why? I don't know why, exactly. Maybe because I've never been taught how to use it properly. But I really think that's a step that will come. For now I've got this little thing going. We buy the apple. We feed the apple to our kids. We toss the core and stem into the composter. Organisms that are already living out in my backyard break it down to usable compost for plants (or just a little ever growing pile of compost in my backyard).

I think about those people who lived here only 150 years ago, only a few generations ago, actually, and how they had to make things last forever. And how closely they had to live near their garbage. Our garbage is whisked away once a week and taken to a far off place. We don't see it. We don't smell it. And yet, it's there.

I'm not sure if it's a result of this, but we've started to look at all packaging and garbage in a different since starting this a few years ago. Most everything is broken down, even if it is a colossal pain. Toilet paper rolls go in the Paper Cycling. Plastics go in the Recycling Bin.

It's not easy. I'm not saying it's easy. I am saying, though, that's it's right and it's good.

There's a Zen Buddhist saying, "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."

Some things, raising good (or relatively good) children, work, gardening, relationships, are not easy. That's what makes them incredibly valuable to us. The world should be of inherent value to all of us, but we've been fooled, lulled to sleep actually, about its value. As hard as it seems, it's going to take work to get back to a proper perspective.

And that's not a bad thing.

(Picture by nanaandbump)

Cows for Freedom

About 5 years ago, I'm not sure where, I heard about an interesting non-profit organization named Heifer. It was founded right after WWII, it's a "humanitarian assistance organization that works to end world hunger and protect the earth."

Essentially, at the beginning, cattle, goats, ducks, and such were flown by B-52s into wartorn Europe. After those many years of bombing, farmers, ranchers, and everyday people were left without fresh milk, meat, or a way of making money.

This organization has grown immensely, even in the time we've been giving to them. But the important first point remains, whoever receives the gift (the cow, duck, chicken, etc.) must "pass on the gift" to someone who is needy when the animal has offspring.

Through reading their material I learned a lot I didn't really want to know and information I think they've found to be vital, such as, in many countries women wouldn't be entrusted with running a business like selling eggs. But often the men are in such dire straits and caught up in, um, activities not conducive to raising a family and rescuing a people out of poverty.

My wife being a vegetarian, when we send gifts to families, they are often not meat products: trees, bees, llamas, etc. The kids aren't so crazy about sending bunnies to a place where they're going to eat them, either. Even after I made my, "Well, what the heck are they supposed to eat?" speech. In the land of Chicken Nuggets, it's hard to get back to a place where people butcher their own food.

Their magazine is no shrinking violet, either. Their book reviews, while not LA Times caliber, do review and point out fluff when they see it. Even if it's a book you would think would be near and dear to their heart. They include articles written by people such as environmental analyst Lester R. Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute and author of, most recently, Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.

As I said earlier, some of the things you read in their magazine are a little difficult to listen to, especially when we have it so easy. On the positive side, it makes me know my money is being used for something productive that I believe in and, here is the odd, personal part, I feel a more a part of the whole world. Which is a feeling I really don't get that often.

Often when I'm gardening, even though I am working for a semi-invisible world, a complicated web of insects, animals, and teeny, tiny organisms in my yard so they may survive. And I can get some peace and educate my children. But I miss that many times. I don't see what I'm doing. I'm caught, as many of us, in my daydreams, worries, etc. so that I've been blinded.

Hell, I don't know where I'm going with this.

Give to Heifer, you'll do something good.

Whether you actually "feel" it or not.

(Photo by squacco)

Water, Water Everywhere... Wait, Nowhere

Matilijas going strong, Catalina Island Bush Poppy flowering, roses finished, daylilies in full effect.

But the corn, oh the corn. Ryan's corn is stunted. It got "knee high by the Fourth of July", but that's essentially where it stayed. Now it's producing corn which will be too small to eat and if it weren't for Ryan, I'd pull them all out. He believes these corn plants are terrific, which, in his mind's eye, I guess they are. He'll learn later that these can't be eaten, but I'm sure he won't be disappointed the way and adult would. (Which in itself is kind of interesting. I can understand an adult who is trying to grow food for his family being crushed when they don't turn out, but it's a bit silly to think of adults crying because the forsythia isn't performing the way they'd like.)

After talking to Jimmy, the plant guy at the Hollywood Farmer's Market, my suspicions were confirmed: not enough water. I kept telling Ryan to water it more frequently, his fault, but didn't listen to him when he indicated we should plant it in front of the house (my fault and faltering memory, it'd done well there a few years back).

We've bought new corn seedlings, Jimmy telling us that you can plant them well into September in Los Angeles. September! It makes you wonder why everyone isn't growing their own vegetables in this city. I guess it's a time/money conundrum. Hell, corn is 10 for $1 during high season. Really hard to beat that deal.

Sadly, the water issue being played out in our garden is being magnified a millionfold over Southern California. While Kansas is being drenched, we just completed the driest year in recorded history (measured July to July, year to year since the late 1800's). And yet, no word of it yet from the politicians.

When I asked someone who works in the DA's office why that was (knowing full well it's not the most politically connected office, but heck, he was available to me at a children's party we were at), his answer was no that one wanted to be the unpopular politician who told everyone to cut back. It makes sense. Pathetic as it is.

I think of JFK's speech about going to the moon:
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too"

What caught my eye was the expression, "not only because they are easy, but because they are hard". It echoes, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

Where is this sort of speech in the light of the current global warming events facing us? It's no secret that many politicians dumbed down the scientific report on climate warming, and that the current administration loves to turn things around to suit their own needs (as every administration does, but in this case, it's not something that you really want to put your spin on. The earth is warming, now what do we do about it?)

Happily this is going to come from the grass roots up (no pun intended), which is probably for the best. The government has never had much to say about organic vegetables and the fact that we're poisoning our soil, it was the public who has made it a multi-billion dollar industry. Once the farmers come on board, they're going to find (my guess) they get a lot more money for their crops when they're grown organically.

Okay, enough gardener soap box. But when you're weeding you have a lot of time to think and I'm not always vocal when talking to people personally (like to the guy I met at a party who told me busing and desegregation was political posturing. Wow).

Water is something I'm always thinking about and I do believe I err a lot on the underwatering side. I think often of the advice a naturalist, my friend Alan, gave me when I told him about my garden: "Don't bother watering it and plant more of whatever does well." Sound advice to a city that gets so much of its water from rivers diverted into a tremendous aqueduct system.

Though we often think we have no control over problems, it's eye opening to see the facts and figures of the average American household "footprint" on the planet these days. Households, not farmers, use more pesticides:

Suburban lawns and gardens receive more pesticide applications per acre (3.2-9.8 lbs) than agriculture (2.7 lbs per acre on average). Source, National Research Council. 1980.

The amount of water used for our home gardens is also staggering:

One third of all residential water use in the nation - about 7.8 billion gallons of water annually - goes to outdoor landscaping.

Can we start with ourselves, with our own front lawns? It's hard to believe this answer is a hearty "yes", but there it is.

It's not every day you can find yourself saving something precious, but here it is right in front of our faces.

You just need to get down close enough to the roses to hear them whisper, "Thank you".

* dewdrops courtesy of listentoreason via creative commons

Giving Back

June 16 (photo credit Jeannot7)

Matilijas going strong, butterfly bush, lion's tail, and daylily in full bloom. Roses almost spent, but no rose hips yet.

I often hear people saying one of two things about gardening: it's hard work or it's not hard work.

The second type of people are usually teens who discover, upon being demanded to come out in help, that it is damn hard work and that they're sore in places they didn't even know existed the next day.

The first type are right, it is hard work, but what they fail to see is the sheer joy of it. Like single people in their 20's who visit friends who have children, they see the non-stop demands of time and the exhaustion, but they cannot feel their friend's incredible joy. Well, during the quiet moments.

I think gardening, like child rearing, religion, meditation, starts to change you from the inside and changes your view of the world.

An eminent Buddhist monk once said, "You do not see things as they are, you see them as you are."

And as you change, that tree, weed, child, song, history lesson, etc. transforms as well.

Though gardening throughout the mid-20th Century has leaned toward vast waste of water and poisoning the soil (I'd read a few years ago that home gardeners' use of pesticide dwarfs the volume used by farmers), I hope we're past much of that now. People have stopped believing that everything put on the market is safe and, thanks to books like Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, realize the implications of using dangerous poisons out in their front yard.

For me, this garden has been a lesson I've taken into my life. Though I'd asked myself questions about environmentalism before, I'd never really taken them to heart. Does this mean I'm going to turn into a vegetarian? Probably not, but heck, would their be any loss if I did? But it has made me calmer and see the world as less my enemy and more something I'm directly a part of. Hell, I'll go one further, Something I'm supposed to care for.

It may not obvious to an industrialist that his pollution is killing the fish in the lake, but it probably will be if he is a fisherman.

There's a few blogs out there who say they are for "the lazy environmentalist" or for the "fashionable environmentalist", but I'm too practical for that. To me it does mean work: hauling the water, chopping the wood, as the expression goes. I work, I sweat, I'm caretaker of this tiny eighth an acre of land. I believe this is the right way. I'm not a fan of golf or retiring in Florida, because I've been surprised by my own love of this work. And how many people I admire who take this kind of work into their lives: men and women who bicycle into their eighties, 97 year old gardeners, those early risers who are out for walks before everyone has even gotten out of their beds.

What's so crazy about it is how shocked I'd be if I could have seen myself when I was a teen. "That's me??? Hell no!"

But then again, like those single friends, I can't see the inside and how close this is to my heart. If I could understand that as a teen, I would see it all.

Fairly Corny

Though I grew up in Nebraska (from 11 to 22), I never grew my own corn.

Being the son of two Philadelphia natives, I was taught to not even think that much about it, as it paled in comparison to Sweet Jersey Corn. According to my parents, anyway.

We've grown corn in our own little sad way for a few years now, only getting three or four pieces from the stalks. Yes, we are not farmers. We're not even really good gardeners. We are Frustrated, Puzzled, and Many Times Amazed Gardeners.

Ryan's so proud of the ones pictured up top, and he should be, as he grew them from seed.

What's so strange to me is how much we are taught about this stuff when we are young and how faded it becomes in adulthood. Every classroom I visit seems to be hatching eggs, growing beans, or releasing butterflies, yet we moved as a society farther and farther away from nature and agriculture. I don't really have an opinion whether moving away from the family farms is good or not, there's so many valid points on each side, but nature has become such a valuable part of my life (and seems to be a valued part of a student's education) I'm surprised to find so many adults are more caught up in the current state of American Idol rather than what's going on in the world which we are so much a part of.

I shouldn't be shocked, especially considering I've worked at jobs (TV, Marketing) intended to distract people from reality in a sense.

I still have so many thoughts outside while gardening and I often sit up and think, "Hell, I should go in and blog about this," but I usually don't.

The other day I had a mild revelation about this.

I was weeding Wendy's Garden (lavender, roses, herbs) and I got an idea to blog about. I was going to get up, but something stopped me. I looked up and saw the hummingbird at the feeder, I heard the songs and chirps of the birds in the distance, and I looked, from ground level at this beautiful world all around me and I realized this place, right here, right now, was where I wanted to be. So often I spend time on my place to somewhere else or thinking of somewhere else, like a G.I. on the Greyhound Bus headed home after war.

I haven't had that feeling in such a long time, and it really seems, as adults with so many responsibilities, we move further and further away from this kind of peace.

Speaking of which, the children are finally coming out to the office and Wendy is up and getting her first cup of coffee. It's time to post this puppy and go back inside.

What Was, What Is

May 10, 2007

Matilijas in bloom as well as Love-In-A-Mist and hundreds of roses. Really a beautiful time to reflect on the garden, if it weren't for the tall grass going to seed. And...

That two days ago I was looking out the window at this:



(photo credit: iwriteplays, see all her photos at her flickr site)

Griffith Park, the 4000-acre park that is home to the Greek Theatre, Griffith Observatory, LA Zoo, and hundreds of miles of trails, was on fire. It's less than a mile from our house and across an 8-lane freeway and the LA River, so we weren't in danger (or evacuated, like our friends in Los Feliz). But we did have a view of something we may never see face-to-face again, a raging wildfire right in our front yard.

We knew we were safe and just shook our heads as we watched the fire lick the night sky. 80-foot flames? 100-foot flames? It was hard to tell.

We were aware everyone had been evacuated from the nearby hills and hoped and prayed that it wouldn't destroy their homes. It didn't, luckily, not a one. The ancient carousel in the park was saved, though flames came within a thousand yards. Crews worked around the night to put it out, and could only say today, days later, that it is near contained.

What we are left with something that looks a bit like Mars.

The firemen have been explaining something that I've been trying to tell people since we were watching the fire that night, when you have a wild area that has not been burned for 50 years, you have a lot of raw material for fire. I hear the rangers try to tell visitors about the role of fire in management of national and state parks, but I think the image of Smokey Bear is so ingrained in our minds and the advice that Fire=Bad, we have trouble accepting it.

Fires are supposed to burn wild areas occasionally. In fact, many wildflowers and pine trees can't bloom or reproduce without the burns. We've only been creating parklands for 150 or so years, these ecosystems have developed over tens of thousands of years. Yes it's sad to think of the animals running away from the fire - but please don't try to deny that an animals life is full of predators and prey, starvation, and other hardships people in our country don't have to bear.

The park will be beautiful again. In fact, in a few weeks, we'll hike around and look with awe at the forces of nature, just like we did when the floods knocked down the great oaks, obliterating trails and ruining walking bridges.

This is our lesson, from Mother Nature herself, please don't miss it by going somewhere else.

Birds of a Feather

Phase 2: For the Birds

Doesn't it sound important when you put the "Phase" in there, like something really big is going on and you're a part of it? Doesn't always happen. In fact, in gardening, most of the time that doesn't seem to be the point.

After spending a full year revamping the garden after telling my gardener Javier we wouldn't need him anymore, we're ready to move in a few different directions. We've got a good habitat, or infrastructure, now for the animals: shrubs for cover, flowers for food, and no pesticides to spoil the treats that lay under the surface for the few skunks and raccoon we've been seeing, but I've started to think about the birds a little more lately.

Our St. Francis bird feeder (now standing more appropriately on the ground due to a broken hook) feeds the ravenous English Sparrows as well as the Mourning Doves, Scrub Jays, Mocking Birds, and recently moved in squirrel quite well. We've gone through two hummingbird feeders, the first crashing to the ground during a windstorm, refilled weekly. We could probably use two, as I've heard (and seen) these little beautiful creatures are so aggressive that any other hummingbird coming to "their" feeder better be ready for a fight. The recent turn of events is the appearance of a Hooded Oriole, as pictured above (credit, under creative commons, to bbum) feeding off the feeder. I'd seen Oriole feeders before, but we've had a hummingbird feeder for years and only within the last week have we seen one. It is really heartening to see; let's me know we're headed in the right direction.

Speaking of which, on a lark (ha! see, that was a joke) I bought a sock Finch feeder at the pet shop a couple months back and hung it on our Toyon tree. (Toyon looks very similar to holly and used to cover the entire hills around our house, which gave them their name, the Hollywood Hills.) After a full month of absolutely nothing, one Saturday the kids and I went out front and scared 5, count 'em, 5 House Finches on the sock feeding away.

They weren't very timid, either. We sat down under the feeder and they came back and started feeding again. The woman who has the garden down the street came by and Ryan had to tell her all about the birds. He's not really a shy kid, by the way.

We've been back to the pet store a few times, to fill up the sock and eventually got an actual finch feeder (a few are available, the ones from Droll Yankees are expensive, but come with a lifetime warranty, but I opted for another brand, cheaper, but made in the US as well.)

This is probably what happens to those crazy bird people, I imagine, because I've already started browsing around for birdhouses. But it's great, right? A middle-aged man without kids feeding the birds can be considered a little bit sad, but a man with kids, why he's just educating them, right?

Plus, hell, it's fun to see them out the window when you're doing the dishes.

Just Too Much

Back from Joshua Tree on Sunday. Half asleep on Monday. The winds are up and gusting at 30mph they feel as if they will blow everything over, but they will not. They are just winds.

The news broke of Vermont Tech's massacre while I was scouting a Caribbean lunch place with my coworker Karin, neither of us could really tell what was going on until later that day.

33 people massacred by an angry, confused boy.

I haven't watched the TV since and just looked at the papers today. The stories of the lives lost were hard to read.

When I turned the page, I saw that the Pulitzer prizes for journalism were handed out and this photo series on a mother's last year with her dying child stared at me from the pages.

Some days the pain in the world is just too much and you must cry, pray, or hug someone you love so hard you may think that they'll break.

The Japanese poet Issa wrote this haiku in the early 19th century, after the death of his infant daughter:

dew evaporates --
and all our life is dew:
so dear, so fresh, so fleeting

The winds will not blow us down and we will not break the ones we love.

But remember this day, remember these feelings. Fight your anger and pray, meditate, or cry until you find peace.

For some reason, I believe our future depends on it.

First Days of Spring

Rain, gloomy weather, flowers, termites. What more could you ask of spring?

Yes, I'm dealing with termites, as mentioned on my other blog, thus not worth mentioning here.

Spent the day at home with the termite inspector/fumigator writing in the studio. I'm actually in a pretty good mood, but I imagine it takes some getting used to, this working from home. I made a go of it, as I have before, but it's just so... lonely? Ah, a writer's life is lonely, unless you're stuck on a godawful TV show with a bunch of people in a room for 12 hours straight. (In that case, I'd prefer the loneliness.)

The irises have come up - they haven't been attacked by the snails just yet, but I know it's coming, it always does. Sad, but the snails love them almost as much as I do. Maybe more so.

The daylillies are coming up, which the snails could care less about, as well as the California poppies. I don't know how it is every year I invest in a big bag of poppy seeds and I'd be damned if I see more than 10 in my yard come spring. Either I'm not doing something right or there's some very full birds flying around out there.

I'm going through something (aren't I always?) which is neither quite forwards nor backwards. It's limbo almost.

We went to Eaton Canyon on Sunday with the kids for a good long hike. We were disappointed when we went in and saw the little river was empty, but it turned out we just had to hike a bit upstream 20 minutes or so to get to the water. Ryan met some 3rd graders and they spent time catching water bugs and looking for frogs.

Wendy and I talked about water and how drawn people are to it. We were so sad to see the river empty downstream, but joy came back when we saw it rushing over rocks and couldn't wait to get down near it. Much like fire, you feel strangely drawn toward it. It says something about safety, about being home, having your basic needs met. And it is just so wonderful to sit by it on a rock and hear the sounds of a splashing, laughing brook.

We should have stayed there but decided to follow the boys up on an adventure to the waterfall (pictured at the link above). We started 10 minutes after them and Lord knows arrived how many minutes later. The trail had been washed out in all sorts of places and I found myself trying to balance Abby on my front and a ten pound bag on my back (I was stupid enough to bring the Sunday Times) while trying to climb from rock to rock over the stream. Wendy and I did work pretty well together to get her across, but as the afternoon came on, the fog lifted and we were being beaten by the sun. Us with no hats or sunscreen. Did I mention my children are almost see-through they're so white? Regardless, I was the only one who got burnt. Right where my hair used to cover my forehead.

The waterfall at the end was really, really disappointing. Everyone was there picnicking and there were wrappers, bottles, and pieces of sandwiches everywhere. There was also tagging (graffiti) in places all over the waterfall, a legacy of some of the idiots in this city. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig says of his visit to the Grand Canyon, it was odd NOT to see a bunch of beer cans piled up at the North Rim, it felt false. Just because that's how crappy it had become.

Well, maybe he should have come to the falls with us, because this certainly did look like crap. The kids, of course, didn't notice it - which is one of those wonderful things about children. They only see certain things and have trouble noticing people sleeping on the streets, taxes, murder, robbery, etc. But, honestly, I have trouble explaining those sorts of things to them. ("Hey, kids - you're not going to believe what kind of horrible world we brought you into. Sorry, but your Mom and I really, really wanted to have kids around so we wouldn't get bored. Catch you later.")

The hike back was better, mostly down hill and we knew there actually was an end in sight. We saw two deer and a woman who was, I kid you not, hiking with her pet goat. I have no idea what kind of person has a pet goat, let alone hikes with it, but there she was. (She wasn't interested, if you're wondering, in talking about the goat, mind you. I imagine every person she passes asks her about the goat and I was just one more. Maybe she should disguise it as a dog.)

I love being outside, that's the truth. And I love being busy. Both of which are a little problematic when it comes to the life of a writer, which is mostly spent indoors wandering through your brain for something good. A) Not outdoors B) Not particularly busy

Aw, hell, Frustrated Gardener, Frustrated Writer. What's the difference between friends?

90 Degrees and On Fire

The smell of night-blooming jasmine and smoke of the nearby burning Griffith Park are intermingling. The sun is up late, it seems like summer.

How long was it since I was a boy?

Just reading Rolling Stone (please don't ask, it was a gift) and going down memory lane with R.E.M. Reading Michael Stipe say, "We don't look much in the past, we're so excited about the future," and I wonder myself how long it's been since I've said as much.

I'm traveling backward some days, with my head in my hands as it were.

The scorching heat and high desert winds have set blazes 6 miles from my house and across the river and one of the nation's largest freeways (the 5). It happens a few times a year, with bright orange pictures of flaming hills splashed across the cover of the LA Times.

We found termites, again. In a wood pile I'd left by the giant timber bamboo for the last few months. They were just milling in and out like ants, busy as you please, 12 inches away from my studio.

Well here's a precarious situation, Organic Gardener meets Vermin That Eats His House.

Sorry, everyone, but this is one of those scenarios where the chemicals come on big. I call one of those places that comes and dumps chemicals aplenty down the holes, killing the queen and all her drones.

Does this mean I've failed as an organic gardener? Perhaps. But then again, my yard provides more than its share of fun stuff to do for the average skunk (we have two), hummingbird, mourning dove, and mockingbird. This is just one of those things I really can't chance with the biggest investment I'll ever make.

Termites and Taxes.

Is there any escape?

Beautiful Surprises

You know that poem someone made up about Jesus, the one called Footprints? I just had what I'd call a Footprints moment. I've been using blogger for somewhere over a year now and seeing no comments, even though a few times people have emailed me comments.

Wouldn't you know, just switching over to Google's Blogger a few moments ago and something like 10 comments appeared out of thin air. Posts from friends. I know you're there (hell, at 50,000 new blogs coming up an hour, I can't imagine many others migrating over here).

Oh, thank you friends, for your thoughts, your minutes spent here, your charity, and your posts.

This does leave me at a sort of conundrum, do I go back and answer all those old posts, which no one is going back to read anyway, or move on?

I think I'll reread them, smile, and be off to bed.

Good night, and thank you again.

72 Degrees and Sunny

(Pictured, right, the Manzanita I started growing from a twig 2 years ago, just in bloom again.)






The unusual and the usual side by side. It's one of those warm February days caused by the Santa Ana winds coming up. High today is expected to be 84, while much of the rest of the country lies buried in snow.

Once again I come back to thea fact, this is what it's like here. A man was complaining in the newspaper about the trees on his street the other day, after an article ran lauding the beauty of native species. "Do not expect me to believe that the sad brown curling leaves found on the California Sycamore can be interpreted as a beautiful harbinger of winter. They are ugly in comparison to the fireworks show of maples on the East Coast."

Bah humbug, indeed. Perhaps this guy should take himself back there. These trees have been the "beautiful harbinger of winter" for 7,000+ years and this jerk is a newcomer who misses his "real" fall. Sorry, guy, this is the real fall in Southern California. As the saying goes, If you don't like it, you can lump it. Please don't debate what is real and what is not real in the natural world when you know nothing about it. It'd be like sending a Chumash Indian to Minnesota and having him declare the snow and ice were unusual and ugly.

I often wonder about garden writers and think I'm correct in believing, like all writers, they're better at writing about what they're doing than actually doing those things themselves. I'm thinking about sports writers, garden writers, etc. I think the only exception I can think of, is cooking writers. My thought about garden writers comes from the thought that there's just not enough time to do both. Gardening seems to take more and more time in my case and it becomes somewhat of an obsession. Plus, it seems to me, whenever I see garden writers' gardens, they never seem to be completely finished. When you're a perfectionist and you take on the task of manipulating nature, you've got a pretty tough row to hoe. (If you don't mind the gardening pun.)

It's funny, sometimes, to see something a writer has written about so lyrically and you stand back and say, "That's it? This is the beautiful pond they were writing about? It's really a hole in the ground." To hear some people waxing poetic about a muddy hole filled with plants truly addresses the phrase, In the eye of the beholder. So perhaps we're better hearing their inspiring thoughts about the hole rather than visiting it ourselves and taking our interpretations along with us.

I probably need to come to the conclusion that my garden will never be finished, but rather a work-in-progress. And also need to understand my obsessive behavior means that I should put limitations on the hours I spend out toiling in the garden. Otherwise, I tend to get a little crazy and very worn out by the time evening comes. (The workout each week, since I got rid of my gardener, I think, along with my higher fiber diet, helped lower my cholesterol to the point my doctor was no longer recommending medicine for me.)

I read about meditative joy, and I realize at some point I actually lose that joy and move into some weird dark area. Of course, that dark area seems to be around more when I'm inside doing housework. And joy seems to be an essential component I want in my life. I just need to be wise about getting to it.

Naming Things

The rain has come back, but it's light. I think the fact that I started to wash and wax my wife's car brought it. Raked up some of the magnolia leaves, they're heavy, like cardboard and tend to smother anything little underneath them. The little California poppies have begun to rise out of the mulch, which is always amazing to me, no matter how many times I see it. You may know already, I'm not the happiest of people, though people mistake me for being one most of the time, but those little sprouts are one of the few things on God's green Earth that moves my heart.

The others? Seeing my children play. Being in church and hearing singing (even if I'm a non-believer). Favorite songs. The beginning of most movies.

I guess that's a lot more things than I thought there'd be.

Met Jimmy Williams again at the Farmer's Market in Hollywood. He's the man who brought back his grandmother's tomato, the Goosecreek tomato, singlehandedly. (Hannah over at This Garden is Illegal has a wonderful post on it.) He's such a wonderful and thoughtful gardener. Was giving me his secrets to growing wonderful tomatoes, and I discovered, as I discover time and again, I am a Frustrated Gardener. I read a quarter of what I need to, try it anyway, and usually end up in disaster. For some reason this sort of jump-in-the-fire thinking isn't in all of my hobby forays. I'm a meticulous cook and writer. But gardening. Hmmm, gardening. There are just so many directions. And when you've got monkey mind, as I do, going out to the garden can lead you in more directions than you're ready for. (Much like the Internet, I've found.)

I probably sound like more of a wreck than I am. But maybe that's the same with all of us.

I spent last year pursuing a more environmentally-conscious living, and, by gum, I was actually able to do it. I just took everything in small steps and kept the steps posted where I saw them every day, by the calendar, right above the toaster and coffee maker. I had plans this year, but where are they now? In a drawer somewhere, I imagine. Well, I'm familiar with those things I need to do: get another IRA, move up a level in yoga and continue to go once a week (if you're laughing, I beg you to join me, this may be pain like you haven't felt since high school football), ride my bike more, meditate more.

The garden, well, the year since taking over the garden from Javier isn't quite over yet and it's been a rousing success. (I said "rousing".) I haven't mowed my lawn in 3 weeks, and to be honest, I don't know what the hell he was doing in my garden all winter long. The big project, taking the leaves, shredding them, then putting them on newspaper spread on the garden floor, won't be completed until early summer, I'm guessing. But, as I've said before, if you're in a hurry, don't take up gardening. It's really an anti-city task. Or maybe an antidote-city task.

The manzanita is flowering and just beautiful with little white bells all throughout the interior. I've managed to keep it from leaning too far into the sidewalk, which I hadn't imagined it'd do when I stuck it's twiggy self into the ground. The nearby Catalina poppy blocked so much of the sun, the sidewalk was one of the few places the manzanita had to go to get some. (You never imaging they'll get big, do you?)

The back yard looks good, but still needs a few tweaks, which will be my next post.

I mean, if you're still listening.

God Head

A new year and so much newness has gone to pot already.

Not in the garden, thankfully, all is quiet, all is bright. I haven't mowed the grass in three weeks, which is a relief. If I was smart, I'd have my mower blade sharpened. Luckily, for me and my laziness, I'm not that smart.

Many times I'm out in the garden I look around in wonder. Other times, I look around and wonder. I wonder stuff like, "What the hell am I doing out here?" I really wish I could answer that question. I ask it at work, too, many time. And at home. I don't ask it when I'm with my children. I know what I'm doing here, but when I'm asking such questions, I worry that I may not be the best influence on my kids. I think they need someone more positive, more outgoing, someone of strong with plenty of faith. In other words, someone else.

I lost my faith in the last year or so. I would love to say it happened quite gradually, but it didn't, it came as a direct result of working toward faith. Growing up, as a child, I went to church every Sunday and all the holy days (which, in the Catholic faith, there are many). I considered myself a believer, but by 18 I was ready to give up my faith entirely.

The strange thing, really, is how often I thought of myself as a lapsed Catholic or Christian at that time. "Well," I would think, "I'm a Christian, but I just have a few problems with going to church." Which was true enough, but I wasn't really taking the time to go back to church and find out what those problems were precisely. When Ryan was young, Wendy and I began going back to church (oops, she was going for the first time). I decided to take this seriously and start taking a Bible study course. Yes, there I was, in the middle of Hollywood, alive with aspiring actors, musicians, producers, and writers, wanting forever to talk about themselves and their projects learning about God, Moses, Jesus, Abraham... you know, all the biggies.

I studied hard. I tried to believe. I prayed for guidance, I prayed, as ridiculously as it might seem, for faith. I tried for 3 years, at the end of which I found out I don't believe at all.

It was a startling revelation, but one who had been nibbling at my brain for quite some time. Many of the faithful at this point will jump up and say maybe I didn't have the right teacher or maybe I wasn't studious enough. Maybe that's true. But then again, maybe they don't know what it's like to experience faith in another person's shoes.

I love my family, most of whom are devout Catholics and wonderful people, and it was hard to tell my mother over Christmas vacation that I was an agnostic. She really didn't want to believe it, which I don't blame her for. I'm sure she wants me to be a joy to God and worship Him. But I had to go through this story and tell her by the end of all this study and prayer, that I didn't believe the basic tenet of Christianity, that Jesus is the Messiah. And that, to me, is reason enough to not go to a Christian church and pretend to be a believer. I mean, if it's true, I'm a hypocrite for attending for my children's and society's sake. Jesus will be aware of that. And if Jesus is not the Messiah, then I'm wasting mine and everyone else's time.

It's funny, because the Catholic church is one of the few places I've met people who are sort-of faithful. People who go to church because their family and society expect it of them. It's a bit sticky for me, as my son is going to a Catholic school. I'm still working out quite how to explain this to him. I mean, here are all these people saying this thing is true, and here's Dad over here who doesn't believe it. It might be a little freaky. But, honestly, I'd rather have it this way than have he and his sister accuse me of being a hypocrite when he's 12 years old.

I wish I did have faith. It'd make some things that much easier, but I just don't.

Do I believe there's a God? Maybe. I'm not really sure. Some say you'd have to be pretty arrogant to think you could figure out whether there's a God or not, but I'm not sure I'm really biting. I know certain things which have nothing to do with faith, like meditation, love, and childbirth open you up to mysteries no one will ever be able to explain. Does that mean there's a God?

At this point, I just don't know.

Fewer Thoughts About TV

Lantana continuing to bloom in a frenzy. Frost-kissed (aka brown) artichokes proliferate in the markets. Roses starting to form buds and lettuce sprouts coming up (mesclun mix). Just cut back our Catalina Island Poppy to one half, it will grab the winter rain and rebound by late January.

Christmas is over and the rains have come. The kids and I bought Wendy a milkweed plant in the fall, which was supposed to attract monarchs. It probably would if it still had any leaves. This is the second one we've planted in the last two years and I'm thinking they're just not crazy about our soil.

By weird coincidence, the other Blogger for my company led me to a NYC Blogger who I've been reading. That Blogger, in turn, loves a LA Blogger who is a Writer/Actor/PowerPoint Artist that I'd met at my company-sponsored portfolio review last summer. She goes by the name Communicatrix on her blog and she, like I, has given up TV wholly, choosing instead to watch only DVDs and videos.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, wish I could declare that giving up TV has led me down the path of finishing that novel I always had been trying to write or has brought my family magically together or even that it has brought me fabulous wealth, but that's simply not the case. (Maybe it has indeed brought my family together, but it's hard to tell with such young children. How am I to compare?)

This woman seems to be experiencing the same phenomenon, which is something I love hearing. Mostly because of the sheer honesty of such a statement. There are probably people giving seminars on giving up TV who are expounding those very things I have no achieved. And, sure enough, I could get in front of a bunch of people and tell them the evils of TV and how much better I am as a result of dropping it out of my life, but I'd be on the road to politics at that point. And I'd be a colossal liar.

I was just talking to my officemate, Ryan and his wife the other night at a party. These are two confirmed TV addicts who have no idea how I can live my life the way I do. Actually their jaws dropped to the floor after I told them I didn't watch TV, then they asked what I do instead. I told them flat out there's nothing to do.

But that's the strange thing: I don't think there's ever been anything to do. I mean before the invention of radio, TV, or the Internet. People sat around and played games, or did that endless amount of work they always had to do, got drunk and beat their wives and children, I guess.

Wendy and I eat dinner together, without the kids, in our own dining room twice a week. I go to yoga one night a week. We both get out for bike rides at night during the week. Honestly, that's about it.

When I first gave up TV, I'd go for walks around the block and, weirdly, I couldn't walk by a house without seeing that familiar blue tint coming out the living room window. It was a very creepy experience. It was almost as if some alien race had come down and bribed us with the ultimate drug which would keep us passive, afraid, and inside all night, then kept setting our country up with worse and worse presidents.

For those who don't believe it's a drug, consider the fact that it's one of the few resting activities that actually lowers your metabolism below normal resting rate. Yes, if you are sitting at home and staring at your wall, you are actually burning more calories than watching your favorite show or DVD.

And you thought playing video games was bad.

I don't know how to promote the no-TV thing. The two facts I keep coming back to are a) that most people don't have anything good to say about it except that it's entertaining, mostly and that b) it's great way to find out whether to wear a coat or not to work. Not overly compelling arguments.

A strange fact is how guilty people feel about watching it. I noticed, after asking many people about their viewing habits, that they generally underestimate the time they spend watching it. They tend to forget about the news that they watch every night, which adds an additional 7 hours a week to their viewing schedule. And the sad fact is that news on television is not very good, and the local news (even LA), is some of the worst trash televised.

One night, years ago, I was talking to Wendy about watching a program together and she said, "You know, it's not really an interactive activity." Which, until that very moment, was news to me. But damn it, she was right.

Giving up TV was hard for me. I am, at heart, a TV addict. I can watch program after program until I am essentially sick to my stomach. (My friend, and quite possibly twin-sister-separated-at-birth, Lauren has the same issue. She watched the Home & Garden channel, HGTV, so much one day that they actually started to run the programs again. Sadly, she watched a few the second time around.)

When I was in high school I started to realize the most interesting people I knew watched hardly any television at all. The couldn't digest many references I made pertaining to Gilligan, the Brady Bunch, or any of the 5 to 6 hours of television I watched daily.

(And I'm not exaggerating much about this daily intake. I watched, after school, TV until dinner time, 3:00 to 6:00. After dinner I would often rush through my homework to get downstairs before 8:00, prime time. I'd watch that for 2 hours, sometimes 3, until the news came on.)

This whole No-TV thing started as a Lenten promise. Though not a practicing Catholic (okay, not true. Not a Catholic at all. An agnostic), I still observe Lent, which are the 6 weeks after Ash Wednesday leading up to Easter Sunday. You choose something to give up which is not "going to church" or "Lent", then see if you can actually do it. I'd given up the radio, my favorite section of the LA Times, meat, and alcohol, when it came to me that I should try to give up television. Both Wendy and I did successfully (alcohol and radio were the most challenging by far) and really never looked back. For awhile we watched movies on Thursdays and Saturdays, but Wendy, it turns out, is a bigger fan of having me cook dinner and sitting down for a few hours over a nice meal and wine.

She gets up for work at 5:15a six days a week, so by 10:00 on most nights she's ready for bed. I'm just worn out by then, and unless something's really holding my attention, I'm in bed a few minutes after her.

Besides being painfully unaware of the goings-on in the latest hit TV shows, a strange side effect is existing outside a major part of the advertising loop. People reference commercials all the time and we have no idea what they're talking about. We also have no idea what the hell a Hemi engine is. Or why anyone in their right mind would make Paris Hilton a star.

Which is probably the strongest argument against watching TV. There's some mediocre programming on there, but, let's face it, for many of us, most of it is crap that we're afraid to admit we're dumb enough to watch.

And aren't our minds worth more than that?

(Photo by Hamachi, courtesy Creative Commons)

In The Gutter

When your mind is in the gutter, at least you know where you are, right?

Today was officially Gutter Cleaning Day at my house. Which meant getting on the roof with my 7-year-old son, Ryan, and cleaning off all the debris that'd collected over the summer and early fall. (Are we into winter already? I can never see the clear demarcation point. It was 90 degrees last week.) I'd waiting until Wendy went out shopping with Abby because it's difficult enough to have one child at the bottom of the ladder bugging you two come up. I don't know what happened to my generation of adults, but when I was a kid, we didn't want to be anywhere near our parents and their ladders. We begged to go watch TV. We knew if we went up there they'd make us do work. And they'd yell at us. Mostly to stay away from the edge. ("Keep away from the edge, Tim!") I remember getting kicked out of a friends yard because I was goofing off instead of helping his family unload a cord of firewood. Can you imagine? I was hurt, insulted. I was also pretty stupid. Why the hell would anyone want to help unload firewood? (I really don't know. It must have been because my friend was there, because I'd be damned if I wanted to help my own family when it came time to unload our cord of wood.)

Hard as it may be to believe, when I got up on the roof, I was actually happy with my wife's decision to cut down the wretched eucalyptus by our bedroom window. This was a tree literally two feet from our house with branches sweeping majestically against the roof tiles during windstorms. A nightmare, essentially. Our roofer told us the debris it was dropping was guaranteed to take 5 years off our 10 year roof. (Which sounds like a deal, 50% off, but really it's not so much.)

When I got up to the roof with Ryan I was met with 75% less debris than I was used to. (Which really is a deal.) In my move to do my own gardening this year, I'd bought the Black and Decker Mulch Hog or some such deal, which is a blower and a vacuum/shredder, which turned out to be the perfect thing for the roof.

Hilariously, I always forget that cleaning the gutter is a multi-step process sort of like painting,
you always think of the painting itself, which is the easy part, the labor is really in the cleaning and prepping. So the first step was getting rid of Abby. Check. Second step, taking all the tools you need out of the garage so you won't have to come all the way down to grab something, or try in vain to yell at someone inside the house to come out and throw you up something. Check.

While Ryan pruned branches and threw them over the side, I took the blower and scooted everything into a couple of corners. Then, Transformer-like, I reversed the blower into a vac and bag and sucked the whole thing into two trash bags, instead of the usual 10. Of course, some of this would have to do with the disappearance of the eucalyptus, but there's always something that beats hard in a man's heart when the machine he bought is living up to the task.

This whole process took about an hour. And you may notice is has absolutely zero to do with the gutters. Well, yes, to the untrained eye. Fact is, when the winter rains come in two weeks or so, all those leaves, seed pods, branches, etc. float across the roof and try to go down the gutters. Now when the gutters are clogged with all this stuff, the water stays on the roof. You don't need Bob Villa to tell you that's not such a great thing or that even the sturdiest of roofs can hold only so much water before it drops it on its surprised occupants.

After having Ryan stick a hose down the first gutter, I was ready to have him come down and start chopping up the branches he just cut. Well, I got him down, but the fact that I was up on the ladder in the front yard turned out to be too intriguing to him. Oh, and the fact that the water was streaming steadily down the driveway, into the street, and down the other gutter into the sewer. Turns out that's really fascinating to 1st graders and no amount of yelling from 10 feet in the air with your hand stuck in between a gutter and a saltillo will make any difference.

Oh, well, I thought. What good is yelling at him going to do? I decided I'd only yell at him when he came over to tell me he was bored or could he come up the ladder, which was exactly 5 times.

Gutter cleaning, like dish washing, is lauded by the Zen Buddhist monks who tell you this is where you find enlightenment. But, really, for the rest of us, it's drudge work. The kind of work our immigrant forefathers did before us and the kind of work current immigrants do today. Of course, there are those of us who can afford to have those immigrants over to do stuff like this for us, but for some reason, good or bad, I think it's one of those drudge jobs you might as well do yourself. I didn't get a glimmer of enlightenment while I was cleaning, but I did pass through some pretty interesting conversations in my head while I was working, "Why do I keep hearing the tune for 'Jessie's Girl'?", "How long did I live with my first girlfriend before we got sick of each other?", and "Those guys who painted the house did a great job, but man, why did they screw up all the things that hooked on the screens?"

Ryan came over occasionally to hand me the hose or ask if he could come up, which led to me saying thank you or yelling at him.

I did see an article in Martha Stewart about cleaning gutters, but a couple things about it turned me off. A) The fact that the guy in the picture was wearing khakis and obviously was posing for a photo shoot and not actually cleaning gutters, as his clean pants would attest to.
B) Do I really need Martha to tell me how to clean gutters? I mean, isn't this one of those things, like peeling an orange, that comes naturally to all of us? The article did mention something called a Gutter Cleaning Tool, which looked more practical than the one Advertised on TV that can be operated while you drink your coffee and read the paper. Still I was suspicious enough not to investigate the tool and take the complicated task of gutter cleaning into my own hands.

My dirty, grimy, filthy hands.

The only advice I have for you is to wait until you are absolutely finished cleaning out the dry gunk (which is fire tinder dry if you live anywhere out in the Southwest) before you shoot a hose down the gutter to really clean it out as that stuff that hasn't been cleaned out gets nice and gooey after a good spraying. Turns out it's also a little harder to handle. I probably learned this lesson last year, but I have a really bad memory. My thought was, I'm not going to place my ladder precariously every five feet and clean that out by hand only to have to come back to each spot to clean it out by hose. That seems to be the only way to do it, by the way. Well, unless you like wet gooey hands.

I almost lost my wedding ring in the gutter. Gotta make that note for next year: Remove wedding ring before starting.

I was halfway around the house when I realized I am never going to get this done in one day. I think this is a step in the right direction for someone like me. Someone prone to keep working until he has to clean up the area while holding a flashlight and rake. Someone who discovers in the morning that he's left his ladder and blower out on the front lawn all night and now they are very wet from where the sprinklers hit them.

I cleaned up, trimmed the branches Ryan refused to take care of, and still have time to remember I'd left my wedding ring in the jeans I was just about to throw into the clothes hamper.

All in all I'd say it was a successful day.

Knives and Wanderers

October 8, 2006

While working in the garden I’m asked, at least once a month, whether or not I am Dr. Schubert M.D., Physician and Surgeon.

The man or woman usually points at the shingle over our nearly century-old carport and look at me wantingly. I answer no and explain the sign belonged to the man who built the house in 1927 and belonged to he and his wife until both their deaths in the early 80’s.

Usually the person listens kindly to me for a moment, then explains a medical problem of one sort or another and its then I understand why they are asking. And why I’ve seen them pass by my house several times pretending to be taking a walk, like some kind of jilted lover pacing in front of their former girlfriend’s house.

It’s at these moments I feel sorry for doctors, though we often see the best part of their lives, say their beautiful cars, large houses, and prestige in society in general (“Oh, you’re a doctor,” people say to them, moving them up a notch or two in their mind’s eye.) What we don’t see, however, is the sadness associated with living life in general that so many people want to share with doctors. That many times we are just tired, worn out, and want an ear to bend for even a few minutes. We may not want to burden our friends and work associates with these very personal problems, but a doctor (who is many times a complete stranger) has the odd role as an authority figure with their finger on the pulse of the miracles of life.

We hear the ads that tell us if we are consistently sad, find ourselves crying when we awaken, we should ask our doctor about Naproxium or some such drug. Society has told us doctors can take care of many problems that were long ago referred to priests, ministers, monks, and/or phrenologists. And, while true doctors have a great many anti-depressants in their drawers, they went to school to learn physiology, not psychology. I wonder how they can handle it.

So today, while raking leaves I listened to a fellow named Don who told me his mother owned the duplex across the way, which is the house where he was born. He looked okay, but he didn’t sound well. He told me he lived up in Sun Valley (an aptly name scorching part of the San Fernando Valley) and was staying with his mother because he might need surgery. I didn’t ask about the surgery, because it seemed rude to ask. But I did wonder, why would he tell me, a complete stranger, and one he now knew, who was not a Physician and Surgeon?

Maybe he just wanted to be heard, I supposed many people do. People like me go to therapists because we know at least they won’t let us go on forever complaining, they’ll help figure out what’s making us feel so poorly, then give us some homework to try to work it out. But for the majority of people they think going to a therapist shows some kind of weakness, as if they were admitting to everyone life was just too hard for them. Even if it actually is.

Don eventually told me his lower back had been giving him severe pain in both his legs (I diagnosed it was a problem with his sciatica, weirdly) and he was apprehensive about going under the knife, because he’d never had surgery before.

I told him I’d had a couple of surgeries and the techniques have come so far that people are now in and out of hospitals in hours instead of days. He asked about my surgeries. I told him about my broken jaw, he looked for the scar and I showed him it, and about my corneal rip, a surgery from which I was able to drive myself home 30 minutes later.

I said he was in one of the best places in the country for surgeons, to which he told me he was flying to Florida, where he found the expert in this area. I laughed and said he’d obviously done his homework, he had nothing to fear at all, he’d be okay.

I told him I’d better get back to the lawn or it’d never get done. He told me it was nice talking to me and hoped I’d see him walking with a smile on his face very soon. I told him I hoped so, too.

As I was walking back to my mower he added that it was nice meeting me, as if just the act of talking to me wasn’t enough, he was actually glad he met me in the first place. I said it was nice meeting him, too.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again, but it was indeed a pleasure meeting him.